


Touch

by Dusty_Forgotten



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 18:43:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4190823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty_Forgotten/pseuds/Dusty_Forgotten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hugs make everything better. Well, except that guy. Don't touch him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Touch

She doesn’t touch people often (because Wastelanders smell gross (and so does she)). Handshakes if they look like they’re expecting one, a punch in the throat if they need it, but otherwise, the only time she touches people, it ends at their genitals.

Then she meets Joshua.

“You look like a man who needs a hug.”

“I am the last man on earth who will withstand a hug.”

She’s not joking. They both think she is.

“Does it hurt?”

Of course it does. Of course, he won’t say.

He fights in ways she doesn’t understand; for all her medical training, under no circumstances should he be able to draw a gun that quickly, much less pistol-whip someone with it.

“Your skin should be splitting apart when you do that.” she murmurs.

His eyes narrow, shut, and open again. “It is.”

She looks out on the Sorrows’ camp, yao guai gauntlet crossed over her stomach. A tribe of peace, preparing for war. A hand falls on her shoulder, and a body swings in the other side. Daniel’s name is on her lips as she looks to the body. Joshua doesn’t look back.

She waits for a word of encouragement, or a Bible verse. He doesn’t speak. Taps her shoulder again, lightly, and walks off. She can still feel the bandages and seared fingertips on her skin.

She finds that touch more comforting than any hug.

She finds that she’s the one who needed it.


End file.
